Biden now 7 million votes ahead of Trump in popular vote
One month after the US election, and weeks after victory was declared for Joe Biden over Donald Trump, the Democrat’s lead over the Republican continues to grow as the results from the final ballot counts trickle in.
As of Friday morning, President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have accrued 51.3 per cent of the popular vote or a record-setting 81,237,902 votes.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have a total of 74,188,990 votes or 46.9 per cent, putting the Biden-Harris ticket ahead by more than 7 million or 4.4 percentage points.
Translated into the electoral college by state wins, Mr Biden has 306 votes to Mr Trump’s 232 — a reversal of Mr Trump’s 2016 win when he lost the popular vote by just under 3 million votes to Hillary Clinton, but still took the White House.
Nevertheless, Mr Trump continues to baselessly complain that he actually won the 2020 election. He never having actually accepted that he didn’t win the popular vote in 2016, complaining even then that there was massive electoral fraud.
To put the Biden numbers in context, 81 million votes is 10 million more than Barack Obama and Mr Biden won on their ticket in 2008 — the previous record for a winning campaign.
Mr Biden has doubled the number of votes and percentage points by which Ms Clinton was ahead of Mr Trump, despite losing the election, and more than the percentage difference between Mr Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012 (3.9 per cent), the last time Mr Biden was on a ticket.
The modern-era record for a Democrat win by such a large percentage difference is still Lyndon Johnson in 1964 against Barry Goldwater when he won 61.1 per cent of the vote to the Republican’s 38.5 per cent.
Republican landslides by Nixon in 1972 and Reagan in 1984 come in at 60.7 per cent of the popular vote and 58.8 per cent respectively.
While the 2020 election was not the landslide that Democrats had hoped for, it has provided them with a comfortable popular mandate and a solid electoral college win.
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